


Starving

by writingramblr



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conspiracy Theories, Credence Barebone Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Fix-It, M/M, Obscurial Credence Barebone, One Shot, Original Percival Graves Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Original Percival Graves is Bad at Feelings, Self-Indulgent, Stream of Consciousness, charlie and the posterboard, ps i'm still bitter, shitty tense changes, sort of soulmates -y, this is what happens when i rewatch their scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9883235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/writingramblr
Summary: Credence goes in search of the Real Mister Graves





	

**Author's Note:**

> self indulgent nonsense, as one bookmarker so aptly put it. like all my shit is this.  
> inspired heavily by gifs of colin from the beguiled

 

* * *

The first thing that’s noticeably different is _more_.

He doesn’t protest, he doesn’t complain, because all he’s ever wanted is _more_.

He’s been afraid to ask, not wanting to stir up anger or hatred or disgust from the one good thing in his life, so he remains quiet.

More means a hand that lingers. Lips that almost kiss his neck, his ear, and the gentle ease with which the man pulls him into his arms.

He doesn’t resist, doesn’t fight it, but he wonders _why_.

What changed?

When did he go from the _special young man_ to ‘his boy?’

The last time he saw the man, he’d barely even stepped close enough out of the shadows. He might as well have been part of the darkness, a devil talking to Credence, trying to seduce him with kindness, and pretty words, about learning magic and leaving Mary Lou behind.

Now he’s being told he can join the wizarding world, easily, if he just does what the man has asked of him. But while he’s asking as nice as can be, with a hand on Credence’s neck and his breath warm at his ear, something about it feels menacing, as if anger, just like ma always has, simmers just below the surface.

Like if he didn’t need Credence, he’d toss him aside in that alleyway, to rot with the rest of the garbage.

* * *

 

Percival can’t say he’s surprised. The fact that the maniac used his connections and severed friendships at work for his own gains.

What hurts more than any of that, more than how _no one_ fucking noticed he’d been replaced, is what has been done to Credence, to the young man he’d tried to save. Tried to give the world.

He’d never have predicted something like that.

The little bit of magic he’d used, a bit of enhancing to his usual mid afternoon tea, had been a lark, a stupid way to pass the time.

Until he’d seen an obscurus in the wet tea leaves, and felt a shudder of fear crawl down his spine. Something that dangerous in his city? It had to be stopped.

Three unusual reports had already arrived on his desk by the time he made it to one of the sites of destruction.

Credence hadn’t even been his first choice for a possible assistant in finding the child.

Only because Tina had mentioned the group, the Second Salemers, had he noticed that there was always the same slim figure, clad in mostly all black, across the street from the Woolworth building, futilely trying to pass out flyers, unaware that he was mainly surrounded by that which was called the enemy in very large print of said flyers.

He just needs a pair of eyes to go where he cannot. Among No-Maj’s, and to keep a lookout for any unusual activity among orphans.

It’s a strange request, but Percival is cautious to say too much, to reveal information that not many should know, although he highly suspects that Credence isn’t just a No-Maj himself.

It wasn’t until their third meeting, long after night had fallen, possibly more dangerous for Credence than he to be out, when he thought to ask, to pry, just a bit, about the past.

Credence told him, slowly, quietly, that for as long as he’d known his ‘ma’ that she’d said his mother was a witch. Percival countered that she probably said that a lot, about people she didn’t like or disagreed with, and while Credence gave him a hint of a smile, he also shook his head.

_‘She meant it. I’m an abomination to her. I’m trying to redeem myself, always.’_

Anger had never been Percival’s vice, drinking or smoking would be more along those lines, but when he noticed how Credence hid his hands, whether from him or just out of habit, he demanded to see one of them.

Red cuts and still bleeding marks were scattered over Credence’s palm, and Percival closed his eyes, and tried to count slowly to fifty.

Before he got halfway, he heard a gasp.

Nothing was wrong, but Credence was not used to gentle healing instead of harming touches. That should have made him angrier, but instead, it made Percival only want to help him more.

There were traces of magic already surrounding Credence, and Percival didn’t know if it was because of the past contact between him and the child who held the obscurus, or something else.

He knew there was so much more than there seemed.

Oh, how Grindelwald had used that.

* * *

 

The man is not dead. He’s not the same either.

Credence has heard whispers, but he has to see, to know, for himself. So he flies.

He has embraced what he is, and it is powerful, deadly, and yet, not enough.

He remembers the day that the man told him he’d have a wand, to help control, to guide his power, and he’d believed him. Credence hadn’t known there was such a thing as being too old to really learn magic. The man had promised.

Unsure of what he’s following, he takes off, into the night, and he is _drawn_ , and finds where the man is staying, healing, as he did for Credence so many times, but from far worse injuries himself.

There is a garden outside of the house where the man sleeps, and Credence lets his hands graze against the leaves and flowers and plants close enough to him. They do not hurt him, they cannot, he means no harm to anyone, and probably hasn’t the strength to do anything.

The wizarding world thinks he is dead.

Maybe it’s better that way.

He can steal looks at everything, and feel like he belongs even if he doesn’t. He is still very dangerous in his serenity.

There.

The man breathes deeply, but imperfectly, whether from a wound or from something else, but Credence hears him.

He pauses at the threshold, wondering if magic can keep him out, for surely the man would not be someplace so isolated without protection.

But he steps inside. Glides forward with smoke cushioning every step, and holds his own breath as he approaches.

He’s never seen the man like he is. Less than perfect.  Not his elegant self nor imposing or intimidating. He almost looks… fragile.

Like Credence has felt for much of his life.

As if one word, one strong enough, will strike him, shatter him, like no belt ever could.

His hand reaches out before he can stop it, coalescing from the blackness, the smoke that always envelopes him now, shields him, cloaks him from being anything but a passing shadow.

Words have lived and died in his throat, things he should have said, pleas he wanted to make, but never became fully formed, until it was too late, and he’d given up control to the power inside him, rather than face the man who had betrayed him.

But that hadn’t been the man he knew.

‘It wasn’t you. I know that now.’

He thinks it for himself, more than says it aloud.

Admitting it, was the hardest part.

The trick had been in the _more_.

More given so freely and so easily.

He should have known.

No man like Mister Graves would ever show such interest in someone like him, not like in the way he believed, bled, breathed for.

The beard on the man’s face is rough, scratching against Credence’s newly healed skin in a way that’s indescribable.

When Credence had woken up, in the same alleyway that he’d met the man so many times, he’d been surprised to find nothing hurt. No part of him was destroyed.

Perhaps it had been the magic.

He’d been reborn, thought dead.

The irony was not lost on him.

He embraced the second chance, and he would not waste it.

Above all, he is sorry.

Not for daring to feel, but for being selfish, and letting it blind him to the truth.

His hand is on the man’s brow, feeling only a hint of warmth, no fever then, merely some sort of magically enhanced rest.

Credence wonders, how would it feel, how would he react, if he were to sit beside him, wait til he awoke?

Would he be angry, or think he was dreaming?

Credence doesn’t know.

* * *

 

Percival took the vacation, and the silent apologies, far too late, from the President, and everyone else who’d ever served him, who he had trusted with his life, wrongly, and didn’t give a return date.

He was going to recover, and then decide if he wanted to return to the place that had betrayed him, and accepted a murderer in his stead.

Percival Graves was not an emotional man, he did not cry at funerals, for he’d attended many, he did not feel the urge to dance when a particularly moving piece of music started in a speakeasy.

He was not someone who _felt_.

Unless it was regret, and failure.

Those he felt so deeply, all the alcohol and cigars and no strings attached sorts of partners could not erase or numb or dull or even halt for a moment.

He thought he deserved it.

Fair price for cheating, for lying, for stealing. Things he’d done in youth, abroad, and he was prepared to pay for them, forever.

It was only one of the ways that he found similarities with Credence.

That special young man.

He’d been so incredible, full of life, potential, magic.

It was more of a crime than Grindelwald stealing his face, worse still than the torture he’d endured, the fact it had been _his_ President who had ordered Credence killed.

He didn’t like playing the martyr, but it seemed he had been cast unwillingly, whether he liked it or not.

He could only imagine the whispers in MACUSA, about the fallen director, off in the middle of the woods somewhere upstate.

There weren’t enough silencing spells in the world for that sort of thing.

At the feel of a hand on his face, Percival was instantly awake, alert, fearing the worst.

The wards had failed, the blood magic had dissipated, and Grindelwald had come, seeking revenge.

He was tired.

So tired.

He couldn’t even stand alone, without his damned cane, much less hold his wand, or perform anything beyond basic cleaning and healing charms.

He was going to die, for certain.

“Make it quick.”

He rasped out, and didn’t even realize the darkness wasn’t from lack of light, until he tried to open his eyes.

The darkness was bending around a person, a form that was vaguely reminiscent of a certain person who’d been reported dead.

A funeral he couldn’t attend, but suspected he’d have shed a tear or few for.

“Mister Graves?”

Percival swallowed thickly, and remembered, ghosts were real and they hung around sometimes, whether from unfinished business, or preference.

“Why are you here?”

Corporeal.

He’d touched Percival’s face.

Not a ghost then.

Drifting on darkness though.

He blinked, as recollection flooded his mind, making him miss what was said next.

“Sorry… I’m a bit…”

The hand braced on his bare chest, right over his heart, and the darkness swirled back, shrinking away, like a folding pair of wings.

“You’re okay. _You_ didn’t hurt me.”

But the other ‘he’ did.

Percival only stared because he couldn’t look away.

The same eyes he used to find infinite sadness in now held concern, and it had to be for him.

“How?”

_Is it possible you’re here?_

_Did you know it wasn’t me?_

All those and more questions remained.

The vessel of darkness and power unknown that was Credence Barebone gave a gentle smile, and Percival felt fingers weaving into his own, squeezing just enough.

“I didn’t. At first.”

Sorry didn’t seem to cover anything anymore.

Percival turned his face away, unable to continue seeing so much wounded beauty, knowing he was the cause, indirectly or not, and the hand on his chest slid up, past his neck to his cheek, forcing him to look back.

“Would you mind if I stayed?”

Percival had a mad urge to laugh,

“You got this far. I think that’s hardly of consequence.”

He saw how the hope faded fast, and his heart skipped a beat. Even in sadness, Credence was as devastating as any other way.

“Oh. I’ll go then.”

Percival had strength enough for that.

If allowed.

He held tighter to Credence’s hand, and shook his head.

“I want you to. If you do.”

* * *

 

Credence curled up beside the man, not quite actually lying on the bed, above sheets and blankets and pillows, but there.

Hands still linked.

An anchor, as if he might just fade away without the contact.

It was good. Safe.

He liked it.

Subconsciously the obscurus was still protecting him, working for him and through him, since it had gotten him there in the first place, helped him accidentally break any and all protective spells guarding the man.

He was later told over an incredibly nice meal that exact thing.

Credence couldn’t believe the magic had done something so benevolent for him, after all the destruction it helped him wreak.

But Mister Graves felt otherwise.

Perhaps the second time around, things would be better.

They already were.

 


End file.
